In my last blog, I talked about the critical importance of using the reticular activating system (RAS) as a means of directing your future and your success by controlling what thoughts you allow into your mind. And judging from your many emails and questions on this, I know that there you have a hunger and a desire to learn more about this process.
First and foremost, understand that it is a process. The good news is that you control the process. You ultimately decide what you put into your mind and what you think about; and believe me, thoughts are a big deal in life. (More on that in a minute.) The point is, controlling your RAS is a process that can be adjusted to change your behavior and lead you to more successful outcomes in your business life and in your life in general.
The RAS as you recall, is a filtering part of the brain that regulates which thoughts are filtered into our minds and which are not allowed in. Once you start telling your RAS what to filter in, you will begin to see changes in the results of your activities. You will see different outcomes, different successes. And the best part of this is that after a while, it will happen automatically!
Thoughts are a valuable commodity
Now let’s talk about your thoughts. Your thoughts are the most valuable commodity you own! They are what make you unique. They are often truly quite valuable and that’s why you should never let them get away from you. Think about this fact: your brain is the most sophisticated part of your body…
Compare your brain’s function to that of your heart, which is perhaps one of the simplest organs in the body. It’s mainly muscle tissue, after all. And all the heart does is contract and expand to pump blood throughout your body. Of course, that simple function allows you to live, doesn’t it?
Now imagine the vast complexity of the brain and imagine how valuable—and powerful–its functions are! One of its primary functions is to think! To create! That’s why you must be in charge of what you allow into your mind. What the brain receives in terms of thoughts, it sets about making those a reality. You control your own reality by controlling the thoughts you allow into your mind!
Thought capturing
Capturing your thoughts is part of this process. As I mentioned before, this process not only clears your mind but also reduces your stress level. Capturing your thoughts also frees up your mind to work more efficiently. Therefore, you need to collect your thoughts on a daily basis.
After you do this, you will find that your mind is clear and works freely. That is the time to relax, ask questions of yourself and to free write the answers on a pad of paper. This way you allow your brain to give you thoughts, ideas, solutions and outcomes that may surprise you. In this way you will go about making your vision come into a reality.
Attitude is the X-Factor
The X-Factor in this process is attitude. That is, how you are around people, especially those people who may have negative personalities, who exhibit anger towards you or otherwise are not positive influences. When you engage these people that you meet in your daily life, you want to become present in those moments, rather than reactive.
Here I’m talking about how you deal with what is being thrown at you. Because none of you live on an island all alone, you interact with all kinds people in your life every day. When you are present rather than reactive, you see beyond the initial negativity that someone might be putting out. You see that that person has fears, frustrations, insecurities and other issues in his or her life that are manifesting as negativity in one way or another.
You don’t react to that negativity. Rather, you let it go by you without affecting you. This is actually an expression of love and compassion on your part. You’re not judging; you’re seeing things for what they are. But remember, the same rules apply to you as well.
Avoid telling yourself “I never could do that,” “I couldn’t,” “I can’t” or any other negating phrases that too many people tell themselves. It’s a habit that has impacted how their brain works and their attitude. Break that habit, because your thoughts determine your decisions and your decisions determine your success.
How do you break that habit? You first must empty yourself of all the things you think you know about working, about going about things, about how to be successful. Empty yourself of fears and doubts and misgivings about yourself. Those are the things that reinforce that destructive habit. You cannot take on new ideas until you have rid yourself of the old ideas of failure, limitations and negativity. Once you do that, you can visualize new possibilities come about.
Visualization
Visualization is a rehearsal of the event in the brain. When this occurs, the brain cannot tell the difference between the actual event and the visualization of the event. This sets the intention and allows you rehearse the outcome of events and efforts to set your RAS into fulfilling your visualization.
Think about this: Great athletes like Michael Jordan, Tiger Woods, and Australian Volleyball Olympic gold medalist Cynthia Stafford, as well as people like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Oprah Winfrey are all strict adherents to visualization strategies and structures to achieve their great accomplishments. It’s important to understand just what this means. Not only do they visualize winning, but also the feel of winning, the act of standing in the winner’s circle with the gold medal around their neck or the trophy in their hands, the feel of the trophy or medal against their skin, and so forth.
Visualization is not an occasional activity. Rather, to be effective, it must be done on a daily basis. How effective is it?
An example is a Russian Olympic team. The coach divided its members into four groups. The first group devoted 100 per cent of their training time to physical training. The second group devoted 75 per cent to physical training and 25 per cent to mental training, that is, visualizing the outcomes. In the third group, the split between the physical and mental training was 50-50, and the fourth group was 25 per cent physical, 75 per cent mental visualization. Of course, the fourth group performed the best.
The exact same process works for real estate investing. Visualize the chunk deal you want or the passive income deal you need and you will have it. Rehearse it, practice it and do it every single day! Visualize the house you live in debt free because you’ve paid off all your debts.
I tried this process out with my Platinum Group, and the results have been absolutely astounding. One student visualized a particular kind of house he wanted to live in with particular four sided bay windows, right down to the smell of the trees in the yard and the view. Within a couple of weeks, he rang me up and described the house he just found that had everything he wanted, right down to the kind of flower on the tree that smells exactly as he visualized.
This process works on whatever level you may choose, in whatever endeavor you choose. I have no doubts about you reaching your success levels that you envision for yourself, and neither should you!